So, I've made some tangible progress on learning and playing guitar. I'm still a novice, been playing maybe a year and a half or so; not quite 2 years. I'm getting to the point where I can start doing some very simple improv riffs, and I wrote my first song using just guitar. Well, I wrote the lyrics back in 2009 during our honeymoon, but I just put melody and chord progressions down with guitar this year. That would be the song, "Snowflake" (I know it's a politically charged word, but the song is not political, honest.....unlike a 2 of my other songs!)

So, for making some good progress, I decided to order a new guitar at a mid-range price point. ($1000 or a little under). You know, as a reward for my progress. I had been looking at Schecter and PRS quite a bit, and then after some reading and seeing a couple videos, Reverend caught my eye. I like the future-retro look they've got going on. I knew I wanted a more curvy shape kinda like my Ibanez Arondite, or maybe something like a "melted" telecaster shape.

First, I looked at the Reverend Shade guitar. I really liked the idea of the railhammer pickups, and I realllllllly like that midnight burst color! I also dig the body shape and all the rest. Plus the volume knob has a kill switch. However, on further looking, there were really only a couple demos, both of which focused on that real deep guttural metal sound. I realize that it's still a pretty versatile guitar, and really loved the color, but ultimately I decided to dive into the rabbit hole, and see what else caught my eye.

I found three other possibilities. The Flatroc, the Club King RT, and the Double Agent OG 20th Anniversary models. I looked at the flatroc first. I dug the sound, and watched a few vids, but wondered if I wanted to go the route of the Gretsch-ish sound with the revtron pickups in both the neck and bridge positions. (Reverend's take on the Gretsch filtertrons). Same thing with the Club King RT, which was similar but semi-hollow. Also, I wasn't crazy about the color options, though I suppose could live with the emerald green flatroc. It seems more recent Club King RT's added a bigsby trem system. I don't want a trem, so that was out. I also didn't really want to buy used, either. A lot of the demos tended towards more rockabilly and blues for both those guitars, which is fine. I think one or two of the demos for the club king were a little harder, too, but I kept looking.

I found a few good vids of the Double Agent OG model, but only a couple of them were of the newer 20th anniversary (2017) version. The older version features a PAF style humbucker in the bridge, and a CP90 (ceramic P90 style single-coil) in the neck. I watched a few of those vids anyway, and I found the Double Agent to be a very versatile guitar, indeed, and there was quite a bit of variance between various tones, and what you could coax out of it. Great cleans, good blues style, and good harder rock driven sustained tones. Seems like it would be a great all-rounder for pretty much any style I'd want to play. I saw a couple vids from NAMM 2017 and Guitar Interactive for the 20th Anniversary edition. The difference in the anniversary edition is that the PAF humbucker is replaced with a railhammer hyper-vintage pickup. The nice thing about the railhammers, is that the lower strings keep a nice tight sound due to the rails, and the enlarged slugs in the upper 3 strings offer more body, so your highs are a little less tinny sounding. I liked the idea, I liked at least one of the color options, and I liked that kind of warped telecaster shape. What also helped seal the deal was that my wife also liked the clean sounds quite a bit compared to some of the other models I was looking at.

Also, Riff City was having a 10% off winter sale on it, so I got my card out and ordered it. (guitar center and some other large vendors have a minimum price agreement with Reverend, so their usual 15% off coupons don't work with them) I went with the black flame maple option. https://www.riffcityguitaroutlet.com/pr ... lame-maple They do have a roasted maple neck option, but it was not part of the winter sale, and I don't mind the natural maple look. I think it offers a nice contrast to the black flame look.

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Just a quick follow-up now that I've spent some time with the new guitar. I really like it. The size is just right for my arm lengths, the neck feels real nice, and the frets are pretty smooth. The hardware is real solid feeling, nothing finnicky or loose. Intonation was good right after unboxing, I just needed to tweak one tuner that was slightly sharp. Wasn't too sharp or flat between open and 12th fret. Action feels good to me.

This is my first "intermediate" priced guitar (I bought it at $899 after a slight winter discount from Riff City). But I feel like the pickups have a lot of character to them, and the contour/bass rolloff knob adds a lot of versatility. The pickups are a ceramic P90 style on the neck and a railhammer hyper-vintage on the bridge. Very nice clean tones, and dirties up real nice with some gain and fx. It just feels like a real instrument, even compared to similarly priced Schecter or PRS models. I'd recommend 'em to anyone.

I'm a novice player, and have been using an Ibanez Arondite ADD120 for a couple years, and as I have mentioned, felt like upgrading in quality as a bit of a reward, but also because I wanted a nice quality guitar that I could grow into as I continue to progress over the years, and I think the Reverend Double Agent OG 20th anniversary will be a great fit. Extremely happy with it!